Those One Year Bibles and similar plans are great! I wish the Church as a whole would adopt something like that so the entire Church would be marching lock step through the Bible every year, with no stone unturned.
I inspected the LOTH on the Universalis web site and discovered that it is very thorough with Psalms, Canticles and hymns and messages from the Church Fathers, but the Bible reading content seems to be lighter than the daily mass readings. Assuming the cycle is one year, I don’t see getting through the entire Bible in that time. On the other hand (the OTOH of the LOTH) one’s prayer life would be amazingly enhanced. Am I correct?
Then the daily Mass Readings would be closer to what I had envisioned, more universal (I assume) and more systematic in its Bible coverage. Or am I way off?
First of all, let me preface this by saying that I pray the LOTH every day. I do not know how much of the Bible is covered in its totality, but I can readily say that one would cover much more of the Bible with the daily Mass readings than with the LOTH. Not only does the LOTH have a cycle of only one year (as you pointed out), but also it is almost completely devoid of gospel passages (you get some canticles drawn from the gospels, and a handful of other gospel options, but that is it). The presumption is that a person who prays the LOTH is also regularly attending Mass, which is the main source of gospel readings in Catholic liturgy.
I think it is safe to say that more Christians pray the daily Mass readings than the LOTH. The assigned Mass readings are, after all, universal, and many people meditate upon them as part of their daily spirituality. Along these lines, many people have missals in their homes or publications such as
Magnificant, which provide the readings. They may also be read online through the
www.usccb.org webpage. Access to the daily Mass readings is readily available, and maneuvering around in a missal is a fairly easy endeavor.
The LOTH, however, is not very “user-friendly”. The structure of each volume can be confusing, as are the instructions on what sections to use (depending on whether or not it is a holy day, what the exact ranking of the holy day is, etc.). I had to be instructed in how to use the 4-hour LOTH and it still took a long time for me to get it right. Of course, praying the LOTH is spiritually beneficial even if one does not follow all the instructions correctly, but I think the fact that the LOTH can be very complex limits the number of people who pray it.
Those who like the idea of praying the breviary but have a difficult time with the full LOTH can opt to use one of the condensed versions (such as
Shorter Christian Prayer),
The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or other breviaries designed for the laity, (such as
Celtic Prayers from Iona). Of course, such an avenue would not be in keeping with the desire you expressed (to be doing the same readings as lots of other people around the world, and to cover a lot of the Bible at the same time), but I thought it was worth mentioning anyway.
Moreover, the psalms, readings and prayers found within the English LOTH for a particular day are not the same ones used universally. Different areas of the world use different breviaries, and many religious orders create and use their own as well. So if you like the idea that you are reading the same Scripture each day with people around the world, it seems that the daily Mass readings are the way to go.
Of course, there are other things that commend the LOTH, such as the prayers of the faithful and the wealth of material from the Early Church Fathers in the Office of Readings. The structure of the LOTH also allows people to “punctuate” their day with prayer (by stopping to pray the LOTH at the various designated times throughout the day).
